As an Accredited Professional in our Forum you are not on your own. We are passionate about helping one another, making a difference and recognising both excellence and innovation. When you join the programme, you will gain access to our online social media community and we encourage you to build up your professional network and post on Chatter (our online forum). You might ask questions, support other members who are on their own learning journey and sharing your own thoughts, challenges and ideas. Another part of professional development is taking regular time each week or month for some activity that supports your development – such as an event, online research or reading a book. As a member, you will be given our Professional Development eBook – with access to online courses. This is a good place to start.

Self-Assessment

When you are ready, you start the path to accreditation by assessing yourself against groups of skills (clusters) relevant to your Professional Community. The facing page gives examples of the templates that you will complete. Once you have completed the first cluster of skills, you return it to us and one of our independent panel of Accredited Professionals will review your submission, provide any initial feedback and get you ready for the next assessment. There are five clusters in total and once they have all been submitted, your assessments will go to a panel meeting where the level of your accreditation will be confirmed.

Assessment at your own pace. Once you have the toolkit to complete the assessment it’s entirely in your gift how quickly and how much time you take to complete it. We’ll keep in touch and check that you’re still progressing but in the spirit of ‘own your own learning’ it’s up to you when you do this.

Getting involved is easy. If your organisation is already a corporate member of The Forum, simply speak to the person in your company who manages the membership. If your organisation is not a member, or you want to become a member independently, you can still be part of this programme at a cost of just £10 per month.

Click the link above to start your membership now. You will be able to pay using a Paypal account, credit card or debit card. Please note: For security protection, the "Subscribe Now" button only works if you are logged into The Forum website.